Babysitting and Other Important Missions of an Organization Suit
by Victoria Camrince
Summary: Suits are tough, hardened, deadly, and dangerous. Only a madman would let them anywhere near his child, let alone watch over them.
1. Chapter 1

Matthew would like it to be put on record – the babysitting thing wasn't his idea.

It was just that… she was so quiet. The child had been walking around the underground laboratory for the past hour without causing so much as a tiny squeak on the steel floors. She didn't even need that much supervision- she seemed to know which things to touch, which cloth-covered jar she's not allowed to open. She's entertained herself just looking around, reading labels off of shelves. _Too quiet._

 _What do you do with quiet kids?_ Matthew had never heard of such a thing before. He had grown up with too many cousins and sisters constantly underfoot and even shy Maria had never been this quiet, this patient. She hasn't even asked Doctor Klaus about any of the sorted items. The doctor hasn't looked up from his latest writings, silently flipping pages and scribbling notes as the child continued to roam.

Doctor Klaus, arguably one of the most brilliant and wicked minds in a community full of brilliant wicked minds psychopath, megalomaniac, a snobby intellectual– _her father._

At least, Matthew hoped he won't groom her as a test subject. But his time as a black-ops specialist and subsequent employment into the Organization had dismissed the hope as soon as it formed. The world was a cruel place, and men living in it were crueler.

There were horror stories. Doctor Klaus once murdered the previous guard for disobedience. Doctor Klaus kept the skulls of all the enemies the Organization had killed. Doctor Klaus was so evil that he only bonds with Titans after he had severed from their previous seeker and customized them.

Matthew had heard the tales and seen the actual bodies preserved in the tanks in this exact laboratory. It wasn't pretty or legal, but Matthew didn't sign up for such things as _pretty_ or _legal_.

His employer's reputation as the Organization's Head of Research and consultant for the T&I was well-earned. Doctor Klaus was a monster, and one of the worst of them.

The monster beckoned the child to come sit next to him. The child put back the framed barracuda skeleton on the cupboard and obeyed, feet moving silently across the polished steel floor. Too quiet.

"What is it?"

"You wanted to know why people can't be like butterflies and hide in cocoons before growing up, yes?"

The child nodded, her pigtails bobbing up and down, foot settled into the circle rung of the high chair and hoisted herself up. Matthew tried to hide a smile. Maybe the child is still a child, after all.

"Well," Doctor Klaus continued, pointing at a diagram on the table, "It's because humans go through this lengthy and painful process called puberty. Hormones go through the body at an alarming rate to speed up the growth and maturity of people."

The child frowned, although it wasn't because of the complex jargon as Matthew suspected. "Not that fast. Caterpillars become butterflies in just weeks."

"Caterpillars are small, and they do not have the same structure as humans do. They don't have bones, for one. They certainly don't need to develop strange odors and growth spurts to survive."

The child flipped a page, frowned deeper, then pushed the book away. "It sounds disgusting. Why can't people just have cocoons?"

"Because nature is unjust," Doctor Klaus answered. "And I'm still working on the cocoon."

"Can you make me and Gareon one?" Alarm bells rang in Matthew's mind. She really shouldn't give the doctor any ideas.

"Gareon and I," Doctor Klaus corrected, and closed the book. "You would carry Gareon with you in the cryogenic tank? You'd probably end up having scales."

"Can I become a dragon?" the child asked hopefully.

The doctor paused for a moment, giving the query a serious thought. It took all of Matthew's training to keep him rooted to his spot and not shout, _Goddammit kid, stop giving the mad scientist ideas!_

Doctor Klaus patted the child's hair. Matthew felt his hair stand on ends at the unnatural show of paternal warmth coming from the aging monster in front of him. "No, you can't bring Gareon with you."

The child pouted. "No thanks. I'd rather go through puberty. Even if it means I'd become a vampire every month."

Klaus sighed. "Bleeding for days on end does not mean you need to consume that much blood to compensate for the loss."

"But how will you get the blood back?"

"The marrow inside your bones replenish it."

The child frowned, her child-like logic unable to imagine the idea of self-refilling blood in the body. "Does that mean that vampires don't have bones? Why else would they drink blood?"

"We have already talked about this, Zhalia. Everything you will ever need to know about vampires are in that book I gave you."

Matthew remembered that book. Or rather, he remembered the frightening walk through the doctor's lab in search of his past notes about operating on blood sucking Titans and animals and spending a miserable afternoon negotiating with the lackeys in Research about transcribing the documents into something more _child-appropriate_.

Many had said no. Some had laughed rather nervously while doing so. One notable researcher had thrown the clearbook full of notes into the wall, barely missing Matthew's head. The one who agreed to do it skimmed the notes and remarked in the coldest, driest voice he had ever heard that she built her pretentiousness all throughout her academic life and dumbing it down is another process.

"If you _ever_ approach me with _this_ ," she snapped the clearbook closed as Matthew winced, "type of request again, I'll personally drain your blood and write your last will and testament on Klaus' wall."

The doctor had placed the human anatomy book on a lower shelf, just about the child's height. Matthew knows from experience that the child will be giving that book a wide berth for as long as she finds the contents uninteresting.

It disturbed some air on the shelf, which blurred into the shape of a small green lizard that slithered into the child's arms. "Then I'm never going through puberty forever," she stated with all surety.

Doctor Klaus shook his head, staring at the child. "You will, it will just take you a longer time. Our family always was full of late bloomers."

"That… wouldn't matter?" the child replied, showing basic knowledge of how genetics work, at least. "I'm adopted."

Matthew jumped a little bit as Klaus slammed his hand on the book on the table. "Who told you that?" he asked, leveling an angry look at the child, who was… giggling? What the fuck?

"Was it you?" The doctor rounded on him, eyes comically wide in an expression that Matthew would have found funny had he not been totally creeped out by it. He was then very grateful for whoever had thought of adding black shades to the company uniform.

 _What did he ask me again?_ Matthew forgot what it was in his fear, then chose to err in the side of caution as he slowly shook his head in a very emphatic _no._

"Then who told my daughter she was adopted?"

"No one did." The child, it was a relief, seemed to know when her scary scientist of an adoptive father was joking, at least. "Papa, you took me off the streets less than a week ago," she said through giggles.

The doctor sighed. He took off his glasses and methodically wiped the lens with a soft blue cloth produced from his shirt. "See, Zhalia, when a man wants to have children but finds that he does not have the time nor the constit-"

The child– _Zhalia_ – clapped her hands on her ears. "I don't need to hear this again." Matthew vehemently agreed.

"Fine, but you should know that you are my daughter still," Doctor Klaus said matter-of-factly, leaving no room for argument. There was a shadow of something in his face, something loving and hesitant to come out and show itself.

"Yes, Papa." Zhalia rolled her eyes. If Matthew squinted his eyes so that he'd block out the eerie laboratory and leave the girl and her father behind, he'd probably believed that this was all normal.

And if Matthew saw her squeeze the lizard closer to her chest or the sheen of tears threatening to spill from her eyes… well.

 _Nobody needs to know_ , he thought, turning away from the scene.


	2. Chapter 2

"You read these kinds of books?" Janine asked Zhalia, checking the cover again to make sure she hasn't misread the title.

"I've never liked fairytales. And the science books all have gross pictures in them. At least these are interesting."

Interesting _is one way to put it,_ Janine thought. _The book's twice as large as her face_. The kid kept glancing at the book, and drawing pineapples on her notes, with an unnerving laser focus. Janine isn't even sure what that has to do with anything she was reading.

Captain Matthew had told her to expect anything weird, said that the child was unusually special, but… really? This was just too much. _Algebraic Geometry_ by Robin Hartshorne. The kid was eight _fucking_ years old. She's supposed to be out there playing with kids her age, or at least her Titan. Her _lizard_ Titan.

She had a long-held superstition that the first Titan a child bonded with said a lot about what they will grow up into. Warrior type Titans bonded to children who will spend their lives protecting people. Flying Titans meant that the children will stand out amongst others due to their skills, pride, or both. Janine herself had been bonded to her Enforcer since she was nine, stingy kid as she was, and had felt a kind of peace after joining the Organization.

And reptilian Titans, she found, tended to bond with equally-as-cold-blooded kids.

(Her sister would have disagreed, would have said that Janine can't generalize stuff as personal as someone's bond with their Titan. But Glenda's Bulreguard had stood by her side, had died by her side as she herded her precious Foundation's junior researchers into safety and the both of them got rained down by bullets. Her sister wouldn't have a leg to stand on, even if she were alive.)

"I like books too." The sudden timbre of the voice behind them made Janine grab for the amulet at her waist, feet set apart in a fight stance, only to drop it as she recognized the owner of the voice.

The speaker still hid in the shadows. "Oh no, please, don't hit me with your amulet, I'm too young to die," said the mocking voice.

Janine slowly took a deep breath, tried to calm the furious thoughts in her mind. "You wouldn't even read the label on a ketchup bottle and you like to read books?" she growled.

She glared at the shadows in general, unable to make out the outline of her new partner, some fresh recruit from some failed unit in Silmido. Jorene, his name in the report. _Another black ops reject._ "Did you even secure the perimeter like I told you to?"

Jorene waved, his pale hand hitting a sliver of light, the only visible thing peeking out from the shelves. "I never said anything about reading. But yes, I have read books. They exist in camps too, you know." He walked around from behind a shelf, hand now in his coat jacket and taking in the musty room with eyes indifferent to the nuanced details of 16th century Gothic architecture. Fucking plebian.

Said pleb pulled up a chair and sat on it backwards, his surprisingly beefy arms crossed over the back of the chair. "This is the smallest library I've ever been in."

 _Small library my ass. This place is twice as big as my apartment._ Janine pulled out a chair in front of Zhalia and asked her, "Do you understand what those numbers mean?"

Retorted the brat, "Would I be reading this if I wasn't?"

Janine felt heat rise to her cheeks as Jorene slapped a hand over his mouth, stifling a cackle. "Ooh, she got you there."

Because getting mad at a kid will get her nowhere, Janine fixed a draconic glare at him instead. "See, this is why high command left you here. I bet you just stood by the water cooler leering at the librarian instead of doing your job."

"If this," he gestured to his face, "Is too much of a problem for you then by all means, secure the perimeter again. You'll see nothing but books and teenagers making out in the darker aisles."

Janine abruptly stood walked away fuming, counting prime numbers to calm herself. Jorene chuckled and shook his head as he stared at Janine's retreating form.

As soon as she was out of sight he turned his gaze to his new job, still quietly reading an Algebra book, uncaring of the spat between her bodyguards. _So, this is Zhalia Moon._

When Sgt. Jorene Choi was called in for his new mission, he didn't expect it to be babysitting some higher-up's kid. After escaping a military facility, slipping from the wrath of the South Korean army, and discovering his magic powers, Jorene expected something a bit more his pay grade.

She wasn't some prime minister's daughter, or secret royalty, or some fucked up hidden weapon child-monster thing. She was just some kid who got lucky enough to be adopted by some guy with a lot of powerful connections. Nobody's out to get her assassinated _yet_.

Although he can guess why _he_ in particular was assigned to her. Zhalia had natural double eyelids and pale features a shade healthier than her adoptive father's rather anemic skin tone. Even if her surname wasn't Korean-sounding, she looked Asian enough to claim she was from there, a perfect spy for the mostly Eurocentric Organization.

Unlike the young trainees who were legacies from Seeker families (like his hot-tempered partner), or on-the-run ex-soldiers who happen to have magic (such as himself), Organization sleeper spies needed to have a complete and established life without any ties to their employer.

Jorene can already see it – a good seven-to-ten years in boarding school, a list of extra-curriculars a mile wide that either pertains to her major (probably in the STEM strand, if not something history-related), summers spent doing something that will get her into headlines of some local newspapers. Martial arts training, one for show and another for taking care of business. But that would be for when she's older.

The younger years are for strengthening the mind. That had mostly been taken care of due to Zhalia being homeschooled by a scientist. Her dossier said that she's fluent in Dutch, German, and English, and is currently learning Russian, French, and Mandarin– a perfectly normal resume for trust fund Eurasian kids with overindulgent and secretive old money parents.

 _All that shit_ , at eight goddamn years old. The fact that the kid hasn't lost her mind yet must be proof that the good doctor removed it and replaced it with something less organic in nature. _Rest in peace to your childhood, kid_.

He almost jumped when Zhalia spoke up. "She hates you, you know."

 _Who? Oh, Janine._ He shrugged in reply. It's not like he doesn't know he's poking a sleeping dragon. Janine clearly had issues a mile wide, but she's still his senior. The soldier in him wouldn't never disobey her orders no matter how much of a bluff he puts up. "That means I'm just doing my job right. Do you really like reading?" he asked.

"No." Zhalia answered, blunter than a butter knife. "I don't like words. This book doesn't have a lot of them, though."

"Your dad didn't give you these to read?"

"No."

Confusion and curiosity battled within him as he looked at what she was sketching. A bunch of pineapples, in multiple sizes, in different angles. Perfectly scaled, according to Jorene's eye. Several neat outlines of the Notre Dame, the Taj Mahal. "Did you trace this?"

"No." She slid out a piece of paper from the page of the book. Despite the crookedness of the nose and the uneven shadows on his face, it was clearly a sketch of Jorene mid-smirk.

Leonardo da Vinci is shaking. "Wow, how did you-" He was cut off by the book that Zhalia lid across the table to him.

Geometry? Okay. Last time he checked those books were for basic shapes and shit, not drawing profiles like some expert criminal sketcher, but okay. "Well, I like books too."

"You said that already."

"Yes, but wait." Jorene rummaged through his coat pocket before pulling out a worn, leather pocket Bible and flipped the pages open. "This book saved my life while I was in prison," he said.

Finding the page he was looking for, he placed slid it across to him. The kid did a double take, adorably so.

A few shelves away, Janine spied Jorene pointing at Bible verses to an entranced Zhalia, whose attention he seemed to have fully taken if the math books unopened on the table were any indication. It was too bad she couldn't hear whatever crockpot he had to say to the kid, so far away.

Janine momentarily paused from where she was photocopying test papers. She could vaguely recall Captain Matthew saying that she came from a Catholic orphanage before the Doctor found her. _Maybe the kid misses that._

"And this one," Jorene continued, gesturing to the tiny switchblade resting in the carved space of the Bible, "was my first blade. I swallowed it before they imprisoned me, so they didn't look for it. Had to throw up to use it though." He involuntarily shivered at the memory. "Good thing I knew a girl who used to work in a circus, before. Swallowed swords like you wouldn't believe."

"And that?" Zhalia pointed to a small amulet resting in the book's hollow. As her finger touched the amulet's surface, a soft red glow emanated from its surface, drenching her small hand in shades of purple and red. Jorene grinned.

" _That_ is Strix. They're bonded with you now, so congratulations." He took the amulet out of the Bible and handed it to Zhalia, who stared at it with the same focus she held for the book she was reading earlier. So cute.

Zhalia traced the designs with her little thumb. Jorene felt the flimsy Titan bond shrinking by the second. "Are you sure you don't need this?" Zhalia asked, voice a tad too quiet for his liking.

 _Maybe her father didn't allow her other amulets?_ Jorene had a feeling that this would get him in trouble, but he strongly felt that kids shouldn't be cooped up reading books all day. And if that means letting go of a few of his Titans…

"Nope," Jorene said, taking the amulet and clasping it around her necklace. It tinkled happily with the green one she had. "There are three of them in there too, so… that's a birthday, Christmas, and New Year's gift all in one."

"Cheapskate," Janine drawled, emerging from behind the unnecessarily ornate _Applied Mathematics_ shelf, a stack of papers in hand. Zhalia hurriedly closed Jorene's bible shut, and slid it to him.

"Here you go, kid," she put the papers on top of Zhalia's math book and– _oh sweet baby Jesus how many square roots are there_? _Matrices? Probability mechanics? Fucking architecture shit nobody cares about?_

Zhalia looked at the tests, then to Janine, then to Jorene and his Bible. Jorene schooled his face into a neutral expression, and quietly resolved himself to his mission, and to not to leave this kid's side before this actual kid-hating demon does.

Janine held out a pencil. "Practice. Go wild."


End file.
